Thank you Omnivore Recordings! It’s out! The classic Duet album with Billy May and his Orchestra newly remastered with NEW song outtakes and alternate takes of the classics the world has enjoyed since its release in 1961!

Beautiful sound – better dynamic range (by a bit) than the original CD pressing too – not a compression job thankfully. So this one “pops” without sounding sharp. Really nice job by Michael Graves.

FYI, this is all stereo – original stereo mix, and fortunately, it’s ALWAYS been a good stereo mix – always has been, as we can now hear – these outtakes seemed to have been mixed years ago (or even at the time) and match the record pretty spot on. So it flows really well.

Great release – I was hoping for some session details in the liner notes (for example, Ronnie Zito – whose now in the pit on Broadway in “Chicago”) was on drums. Obviously this is also Billy May and what a grand job he does!

Great guy, and he’s one of the last people on earth to be there – he was VERY young (his older brother was Torrie Zito who arranged Bobby).. and any new photos (odd that even the one pic of them working at the piano isn’t included in the booklet) – but man, what a looong labor of love that this expanded edition is finally out!

Another guy not mentioned who helped was Bill Inglot. They refer to “back in the day” about Rhino – but it’s Bill who helped back then.

I can’t say enough about the MUSIC on this record.

It bests my NM original stereo LP itself – so kudos to Michael Graves on the remastering.

The highlights of the expanded release IMO are the two “new” songs – “Lily of Laguna” – one of those old songs where you’re meant to mess with the lyrics – they have a blast. Bobby sings falsetto – great fun stuff. More impressions, even studio chatter – after 9 takes of “My Cutey’s Due at Two-to-Two Today” the energy is great – Bobby on starting Take 10 (included) “Ok! This is the take home!..”

Really, magic in a bottle. One of those one-off amazing chemistry projects cooked up by Steve Blauner when Bobby was just starting. He was only 24 years old at the time of recording – you wouldn’t believe it if you were just listening to this amazing album. Wonderful stuff.

Bobby Darin & Johnny Mercer “Two of a Kind” with Billy May and His Orchestra – one of the most joyously fun and brilliantly arranged albums albums is getting the deluxe expanded treatment!

Newly remastered with 2 NEW UNRELEASED TRACKS, and 4 ALTERNATE TAKES!

Bobby Darin’s manager, Steve Blauner’s original idea (and is credited as such on the back of the original LP) – this unique and fantastic experiment is one the best albums ever made.

The LP is framed and hangs permanently here as a testament to pure joy. Once you’ve heard the music, it’s hard not to see the cover and not smile.

And then you hit repeat.

SUPER SPECIAL THANKS TO CHERYL PAWELSKI, who was mentored at Capitol (we hear) BY Steve Blauner early on in her career. It’s come full circle and THANK YOU for bringing this project out. Long live Omnivore Recordings!

Despite only being released as a b-side only to the non-LP single “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” (in mono only) in ‘1962, this gem of a track was originally slated to be the title track to Bobby’s Capitol debut LP, As Long as I’m Singin’ – which became Oh! Look at Me Now albeit with a few alternate takes of the final tracks and the former title track left off the line-up.

The Billy May-arranged “As Long as I’m Singing” came up again as an opener for an otherwise arranged Bob Florence LP, however once again, an As Long as I’m Singing album didn’t happen – this time with most of the excellent recordings such as “Hello Young Lovers”, This Nearly Was Mine”, and “The Sweetest Sounds” left in the can for years, with most of the “leftovers” coming out on various Capitol compilations throughout the 90s and ’00s.

Fortunately, both Bobby and the audience seemed to know how great the song actually was – Bobby used it often to open his live shows and it became a staple of his – the name eventually and aptly finally being used for Rhino’s career-spanning Bobby Darin box set from 1995.

Here is the original 1964 STEREO mix made for the second album taken from the acetate. The mix differs from the excellent stereo debut one done in the 1980s by Ron Furmanek (with brief count-in), in that you can hear a bit more of the piano and there is a generous amount of that vintage Capitol reverb surrounding Bobby’s magical vocals.

From Ken Kelly who prepared this: “I cleaned this acetate on a record cleaning machine and the fidelity is mostly excellent. Minimal sonic cleanup was done to best preserve the feel and vitality of the original recording. So, without further adieu, here is the “Bobby-approved” 1962/1964 stereo mix of “As Long As I’m Singing”…”

Here’s Bobby’s sole Christmas single in rare WIDE STEREO from his excellent 1960 spiritual Christmas LP, “The 25th Day of December”. (Note the original single, “Child of God”, was released as mono-only).

Released by ATCO in 1960, Bobby chose to record more “spiritual” songs to celebrate the season as opposed to the more traditional pop “Jingle Bells”, “Sleigh Ride” tunes he could have easily knocked out of the park. As usual, Bobby wanted to do something different – an album that felt like the holiday spirit – spiritual jazz pop gospel – the Darin way.

Arranged by Bobby Scott (who arranged Bobby’s two originally shelved ATCO LPs, “It’s You Or No One” and “Winners”). There was simply a glut of Bobby material he recorded at the time and they released those two complete albums after his tenure at ATCO.

This wonderful seasonal album is available in WIDE stereo exclusively on the Real Gone Music CD reissue, mastered directly from the original stereo tapes!

Spotlight on A Great Gentleman of Song… Bobby’s Incredible Voice and Vocal Delivery!

We took what is considered to be one of, if not the best, Bobby vocals – and crafted a near a-capella mix from the original stereo release to a mono Bobby vocal “up-mix”.

Inspired by The Beach Boys’ “Stack-O-Vocals” it only seemed right we extract at least one vocal for the great Bobby Darin. Note that the way these early ATCO cuts were recorded, Bobby did not always have his own vocal track. So this is totally unique – and not pulled directly from any single track.

Crafted off the original stereo mix – we kept the “warmth” of Bobby’s powerhouse vocal, so you will hear some backing track “leakage”. It was too sterile with removing all of the backing track – this was the second pass.

This is not to supplant the original final mix in any way (or the officially-released alternate version released on “The Bobby Darin Story” – missing a lot of BD’s trademark vocal inflections).

This was crafted to showcase Bobby Darin, the young vocalist – the attitude, the voice, the blowing bubbles, the inflections – the “hep-hep”s!

Up now we focus on “You Just Don’t Know – a beautiful tune that is almost ALL Bobby, except in name.

Bobby wrote this gorgeous tune and produced it for his protegee, Wayne Newton, as one of Bobby’s final productions for Capitol.

Bobby had released his version on his final Capitol LP, “Venice Blue” that past May, and this is one of his final productions during his essential and incredible output during his Capitol Years.

Main track and vocal recorded on Dec. 6, 1965 at RCA in NY, the single was released on Jan. 31, 1966. Arranged by Richard Wess who also arranged Darins’ “Venice Blue” album (and several others), this should have been a big hit for Wayne.

Did you know Bobby produced over 20 tracks for Newton for Capitol in addition to “Danke Schoen”?

Note: When you see “Produced by T.M. Music, Inc.” – that is Bobby! Unfortunately, no BD-“guide vocal” is known to exist, so you’ll have to imagine Bobby singing it if you want though Wayne indeed knocks Bobby’s original tune out of the park!

This is hands-on Bobby – from writing the tune himself to the final product.

Originally ONLY released in MONO, here is the original shoulda-been-a-hit 45 version:

The stereo version, remixed by Ron Furmanek from the original 3 and 4 track master session tapes in the late 80s, at the time, only the backing vocals were unable to be located after an exhaustive search in the vaults, so you can clearly hear the mix differences, but also Bobby’s production is MUCH more clear on this unique alternate stereo mix!

Next up: First-ever release of Bobby’s Vocal “Upmix” of his classic single, “Clementine”!

Exclusive version with Bobby’s recorded intro from the 1961 Stereo LP, “The Bobby Darin Story”

Bobby had a hit with another fantastic arrangement by Richard Behrke (“Mack the Knife”) on this old Hoagy Carmichael number!

Just missed the number 1 spot in the UK reaching #2 on the charts in 1961!

Mono is almost always the go-to version of this wonderful rendition as you’ll notice in this stereo mix the wider, yet still smooth, “ping-pong” vocals. A great companion to the hit mono version and with exclusive Bobby commentary for this LP-only!

On May 14, 2016, what would have been Bobby Darin’s 80th birthday, WVKR-FM broadcast a tribute to the star on “The Lost And Found Oldies Show” hosted by Sam Tallerico. Special guests included authors Jeff Bleiel and Shane Brown and the program featured a variety of Bobby’s music and audio clips.